happen. You and Will both tried to force this, and obviously, neither of you were completely ecstatic about the prospect of your impending nuptials. You approached the whole thing like a business deal and left all the details, like your fucking dress, to his mother.” She rolled her eyes. “I mean, it was your wedding dress for God’s sake. Surely, you couldn’t have felt like it was an extra little thing that didn’t fit in any other category.”
“Will said it meant a lot to his mom to take care of it,” I said meekly. I had no other excuse. “At least I’ve learned from this experience what I don’t want in a dress.”
“There we go.” She smiled. “You found a silver lining.”
I let out a very unladylike snort and reached for a brownie. “It’s not much of a consolation. I still don’t know what I’m supposed to do from here. Knowing what I don’t want in a wedding dress when I don’t even know if I’ll ever get married isn’t exactly useful.”
“Do you still want to get married?” she asked. There was no judgment in her tone, only curiosity.
Ember never understood why I wanted to get married in the first place. As much as she talked about finding the right guy, it was only because she thought that was what I wanted.
I shrugged. “We’ll see. Trying to plan it that way didn’t work and I’m not sure if I can live with the alternative of just waiting and seeing if it ever does.”
“I’m not sure there’s any other way to do it,” she said sympathetically. “On the bright side, you’ve got a couple of weeks off work now, don’t you? You have plenty of time to wrap your head around all this.”
“That’s part of my problem.” I blew out a breath. “I already took time off for the wedding and the honeymoon and I’m just going to be sitting around the house. I don’t need time to wrap my head around stuff. I need to get on with my life. You know how much I hate empty days in my planner, and I’m staring at almost two weeks of empty days now.”
Her teeth sank into her lip before she perked up. “So go on your honeymoon.”
“What?” I scoffed and held up my hands. “No, that’s a terrible idea. It would be the most depressing thing in the world to go to a romantic resort booked for my honeymoon alone.”
“Why? It’s a vacation that’s already been paid for. Someone has to go on it. It’d be even more depressing if all that money went to waste.”
“It’d be infinitely more depressing to sit on the beach in fucking Fiji drinking cocktails by myself while watching couples do activities and stroll around hand in hand.”
“The only parts of the sentence I heard were ‘fucking Fiji’ and ‘drinking cocktails on the beach.’ There’s no way that could be depressing, and if it is, you just order more cocktails.”
“You’re insane.” I folded my arms, but my gaze flicked to the clock on the wall. “There’s no way I’d make the flight anyway. It takes off in four hours.”
“It takes less than forty minutes to get to the airport from here. You’re already packed, aren’t you? Being who you are, I doubt you were leaving it until this morning before having your suitcase ready to go.”
“Of course, I’m packed but I haven’t even showered.” Nibbling on the inside of my cheek, I realized that—logistically, at least—she was right.
There was no reason why I couldn’t go. I had time to get cleaned up, grab my things, and make it to the airport with time to spare.
My passport was ready. My airplane ticket and accommodation at the resort was booked and paid for, and I already had the time off work.
If I didn’t go, I was staring down the barrel of doing nothing for much longer than I’d ever done nothing for before. I could go back to work early, but I didn’t really feel ready to face the pity and the “are you okays?” from everyone there.
Staying here would mean having to face that from family and friends who came around to check on me. I’d been getting messages about it all morning already.
“You’re really thinking about it, aren’t you?” she asked, excitement sparking in her eyes as she bounced on the cushion.
I nodded. “Any way you could come with me?”
She sighed and shook her head. “Unlike you, I don’t have all my ducks in a row